Words from the Saints -- January 4, 2024

"How could the human race go to God if God had not come to us?" --St. Irenaeus of Lyons

"Pray in peace and serenity, sing intelligently and in a good state - and you will be like a young eagle soaring high in the sky." --St. Nilus of Sinai

"If a man tries to overcome temptations without prayer and patient endurance, he will become more entangled in them instead of driving them away." --St. Mark the Ascetic

"The Lord sees your need and your efforts, and will give you a helping hand. He will support and establish you as a soldier, fully armed and ready to go into battle. No support can be better than His. The greatest danger lies in the soul thinking that it can find this help within itself; then it will lose everything. Evil will dominate it again, eclipsing the light that as yet flickers but weakly in the soul, and it will extinguish the small flame which is still scarcely burning. The soul should realize how powerless it is alone; therefore, expecting nothing of itself, let it fall down in humility before God, and in its own heart recognize itself to be nothing. Then grace - which is all powerful - will, out of this nothing, create in it everything. He who in total humility puts himself in the hand of the merciful God, attracts the Lord to himself, and becomes strong in His strength." --St. Theophan the Recluse

"To receive gifts from the Holy Spirit, you must, first of all, cleanse your heart of sin, self-love, and pride. The Holy Spirit always surrounds us and wishes to fill us, but the evil nesting within us, like a wall, impedes His path." --St. Innocent of Alaska

"Every single one of the saints acquired humility from the fulfillment of the Commandments. No one can explain how this comes about, how humility is generated in the soul. Unless a man learns this by experience, he cannot learn it by verbal teaching." --St. Dorotheos of Gaza